Length of Credit History: Keep or Close Old Accounts?

“Length of credit history” tracks how long you’ve successfully used credit: the age of your oldest account, the age of your newest account, and the average age across everything on your reports. In FICO® Scores it’s a modest but real slice of your score (about 15%), and in VantageScore it sits inside “credit depth/experience,” which models also treat as important. Longer is generally better — but closing a card doesn’t work the way many people think. Positive, closed accounts can keep contributing to your history for years, and the biggest immediate hit from closing a card often comes from losing its credit limit (raising utilization), not from “erasing” its age.

This guide explains how age is computed, what actually happens when you close or keep older cards, when it’s smart to close anyway, and how to preserve both your utilization and your history with simple, low-effort tactics.

What “length of credit history” actually measures

Scoring models reward proven, time-tested behavior, but they don’t require decades of accounts to reach strong scores. FICO’s public education shows “Length of credit history” contributes about 15% and looks at three core elements:

1. Age of your oldest account. This sets the upper bound of your experience. An account opened 12 years ago shows a longer track record than one opened 2 years ago, even if it’s now closed in good standing.

2. Average age of accounts (AAoA). Models look at the average age across all your open and closed accounts that are still on file. Opening several new lines in a short span pulls this average down, particularly on thinner files.

3. How long individual accounts have been open and used. A card you’ve successfully managed for years, with recent on-time activity, generally sends a stronger signal than a brand-new account with just one or two payments.

VantageScore groups “credit mix & experience/depth” among its influential factors as well, but payment history and balances remain the heavyweights across models. In practice, length acts as a tiebreaker: it nudges good profiles a bit higher rather than rescuing weak ones. If you’re choosing between “open a loan I don’t need” for age or “protect perfect payments,” the latter wins every time.

Closing vs. keeping: what really happens to age, utilization, and your score

The biggest misconception is that closing a credit card instantly “removes” its age from your score. It doesn’t. If the account was positive, most bureaus keep it on your reports for up to about ten years, and while it remains, its age can still be part of the file the models see.

The immediate risk from closing is usually utilization:

• When you remove a card with, say, a $5,000 limit, your total available credit shrinks overnight.
• Any balances you carry elsewhere now represent a higher percentage of your overall limits.
• Higher utilization is a negative signal in both FICO and VantageScore, and it can offset any theoretical benefit from “simplifying” your accounts.

Over the longer term, when that closed account eventually ages off your reports, your average age may dip again, causing a secondary, delayed effect. Keeping an old, no-fee card open instead lets you preserve both its limit (for utilization) and its age (for history), which together support scores even if you barely use the card.

If the card carries an annual fee you no longer want, a product change to a no-fee version at the same issuer can often preserve the account’s original open date and credit line with far fewer side effects than a full closure.

When it makes sense to close — and how to do it with minimal score damage

Sometimes closing is the right move. If a card has high annual fees you can’t offset, encourages overspending, or presents persistent fraud/administrative headaches, shutting it down can be the cleaner choice.

Before you close, take two defensive steps:

1. Protect utilization. Pay revolving balances down and, where appropriate, request higher limits on your remaining cards (without opening many new ones), so losing this card’s limit doesn’t spike your utilization. Aim to keep overall and per-card utilization in the low double digits or single digits if possible.

2. Prepare the account for closure. Redeem rewards, download statements, and move any recurring autopays to another card or your checking account. Then confirm with the issuer that the account will report as “closed by consumer” in good standing.

After closure, monitor your reports to ensure:

• The status shows as closed, with a $0 balance.
• Any late marks you previously disputed are correctly coded.
• The account remains visible (if positive) so its history can keep working for you until it eventually falls off.

If you’re downsizing from several cards to just a few, consider spacing closures out instead of shutting multiple cards in the same month. That reduces the chance of a sudden utilization shock or a big swing in your average age right before a major application.

Inactivity closures and other gotchas

Card issuers can close accounts you haven’t used for a while. Policies vary by bank and card type, but reports and issuer disclosures make clear that inactivity is a common trigger after months (sometimes a year or more) without use. Because these closures remove available credit without much warning, they can produce a utilization spike you didn’t plan for.

To avoid surprises:

• Rotate a small purchase on each seldom-used card a few times per year, or set one low-value recurring transaction.
• Keep autopay at the statement balance to prevent accidental interest.
• Watch for emails or letters about “low or no activity” — these can signal that a closure is possible if you don’t use the card soon.

If you do receive a closure notice, you can ask for reconsideration or a product change, but approvals aren’t guaranteed. Even if the bank won’t reopen the account, remember: if it was in good standing, it should still remain on your reports for years, so your history isn’t erased overnight.

Negative items have different clocks. Most fall off after about seven years (bankruptcies up to ten), and you generally can’t remove accurate negative data early. Building strong age is ultimately about consistency: guard your oldest lines, avoid unnecessary churn, and let time do the heavy lifting.